That’s a Wrap

I slept well last night and woke up naturally nice and early.  I had considered going back to Kerid Crater but with an hour drive each way I decided that I didn’t really feel like venturing that far; I only had a few hours before I wanted to head to the airport.  I did some quick research on highlights in Reykjavik itself and headed out.

I stopped for breakfast and my morning tea at a quaint little cafe near my AirBnB.  It was the first time this trip I actually observed an Icelandic custom I had read about; parents leaving their babies OUTSIDE places when they go in!  There were two carriages outside the cafe and sure enough when I walked by, each contained a sleeping baby.  This tradition supposedly goes back to when Icelanders slept in more grotesque conditions where the inside spaces were often smoky and stuffy.  Whatever the origin, I finally saw it with my own eyes.  Those sleeping babies looked pretty content.

I headed to the Arbaejarsafn Open Air Museum.  From the brief description I read, it sounded interesting, an outdoor museum of old buildings they had relocated.  I figured it would yield interesting architecture.  Wrong.  It was indeed old buildings they had relocated and then set up as a traditional village back in the 19-something would have been.  Eh.  They had one house dedicated to play and toys, the building itself was an old church.  As I looked at the interactive play area I thought how much my nephews would love it there.  The coolest thing I did see at Arbaejarsafn was some old turf houses.  I had seen many along the roads as I drove through the southern part of the country but none where I could safely turn off and snap a picture.  These did look just like the ones I saw so I was glad I could preserve the memory.  There were something like 20 buildings on the grounds but after about four I got sick of almost smacking my head on the low ceilings and thresholds and I really wasn’t that interested.  The place was weird. So I bounced.

I decided to head back into the Reykjavik city center and check out the Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral, an iconic building for the city. You can go to the top for a good view supposedly.  I got there and parking was tight, and again, I found myself really just not interested so I decided to hell with it and left. Didn’t even take a picture. You can google it.

I did some quick research and decided to head to the Perlan museum and restaurant.   I could see it’s dome across the city but had not found much to read about it.  Worth a shot.  This place was cool.  It is still under construction so I’d say less than half of the exhibits are open but it was great.  The exhibits they had available were explorations into the history of Iceland and the science of the glaciers and volcanoes.  I wish I had started my trip here.  I would have had such a better base of knowledge to know what I was looking at during the last week!  Apparently the first settler to discover Iceland decided to name the island after himself.  I want to name an island after myself.  I found a piece of California in the museum, a giant sequoia cross-section that the U.S. had gifted to Iceland.

At the museum they have also built a recreation of an ice cave!  Natural ice cave tours are not accessible in the summer so I was not able to do one but this was an awesome recreation.  It is indeed actual ice, complete with a piece that they actually excavated from one of the glaciers.  The ice cave is maintained at a “comfortable” -10 to -15 Celsius so it does not collapse!  I learned that the further down into a glacier you go the clearer the ice becomes.  The segment from an actual glacier they had in there was from about 30 meters down I believe and the ice was crystal clear.  This is from the weight above it pushing out the air.  This piece of ice was estimated to be about 250 years old.

Perlan had a beautiful restaurant on the top level and after enjoying the ice cave I decided to warm up with a big bowl of soup.  The restaurant is in a giant clear glass dome with 360 degree views of the city and was something special.  And warm.

After Perlan I decided to head to the airport a little early.  And I’m glad I did, road construction meant that at one point I was literally in park on the highway for a solid 16 minutes.  But I could have been stopped in worse places.  I knew I had plenty of time and it would move eventually so I soaked in the last of the beautiful Iceland landscape.

A note on my Garmin, the little inReach mini.  It was totally worth it for the peace of mind and I’m glad I have it for my future travels as well.  Being able to login and see my route was pretty awesome and at times I found it helpful to be able to pull up my latitude/longitude/altitude.  I do need to figure out how to actually use it for navigation but it was a great little tool to have with me. As far as my daily navigation/route planning… I actually brought a notebook with me this trip so had a little bit more sophisticated of a system than New Zealand in February; this time I had different pieces of paper for each day 😉

In just a few minutes I will board my flight and head back to Chicago for a night.  And onto home tomorrow morning.  And by the way, Hertz told me I put 1,665 miles on my trusty little Nissan XTrail over the last 8 days.  And not even a ding!!!

I have 72 days until my next big adventure…